Re: Proposal: tell git a file has been renamed

Another example of where the current implementation isn't working great

  A - B - C

commit A makes changes to foo commit B changes the name of foo to bar commit C symlinks foo => bar

Rebasing the commits and reordering them

  commit B changes the name of foo to bar
  commit C symlinks foo => bar
  commit A makes changes to foo

is going to result in merge conflicts. The best way to achieve this ordering is actually doing multiple rebases.

  commit B changes the name of foo to bar
  commit A makes changes to foo
  commit C symlinks foo => bar

followed by

  commit B changes the name of foo to bar
  commit C symlinks foo => bar
  commit A makes changes to foo

I guess the difficulty that arises from reordering commits like this isn't unique to renames but it arguably results in a more hostile user experience. It requires an unusual amount of discipline and understanding of what is going on to resolve as well as how to avoid it.